I’m not just throwing that word around. It’s based on the same GK104 GPU at the heart of Nvidia’s current-generation single-GPU leader, the GTX 680, and its performance stops just shy of what you’d get with two of those hooked up in SLI; Nvidia’s claims of this being the fastest video card in the world weren’t exaggerations. But compared with an SLI setup, the GTX 690 requires only one expansion slot and uses a lot less power (my test system drew 56 watts less under full graphics load with the GTX 690 than it did with two GTX 680s — 414 watts versus 470 watts). Plus, it’s received such a thorough physical redesign it almost doesn’t look like a video card anymore: It’s more like a jet engine crossed with an aluminum sculpture. Everything else aside, it looks… sexy. (Did I really just say that about a video card? Heaven help me.)

In other words, Nvidia has gone out of its way to make sure that the GTX 690 is a completely satisfying product. Sure, there’s the little problem of price: It costs $1,000, or the same as two GTX 680s. As for availability, there are a few out floating around out there now and there will be a few more on May 7, but whether we’ll see many more is not clear at this point — nor is it particularly relevant, as works of art (which is obviously how Nvidia has styled the GTX 690) are praised as much for their rarity as their features.

Only one question remains: Do you need one?

If you’re reading this, chances are you don’t need to be convinced of the worth of discrete video, even high-level discrete video. But, in the past, how much have you been willing to pay for one? How much have you had to pay for one? It’s an unfortunate fact of life with computer building that, in most cases, you get exactly what you pay for, and previous releases of even ultra–high end models seemed to keep this in mind.

Previous dual-GPU cards, like Nvidia’s last one, the GTX 590, or the Radeon HD 6990 or Radeon HD 5990 from AMD’s last two generations, capped their prices around the $700-$800 mark. True, you weren’t getting exactly double the performance of the highest-level cards with them — the 6990, for example, was closer to what you’d see with two of the next-best cards of that series, the 6950 — but you were still getting a lot. And maybe it’s just me, but $800 seems fair for what you get. Not sensible, mind you — that’s not a word I tend to apply very often to computer components with four-digit prices — but fair: something that could legitimately be part of a full, jealousy-inciting gaming PC.

Even so, $1000 for a video card is… a lot. I’d even go as far as saying that, with this pricing, Nvidia has smashed a psychological barrier that maybe should have been left intact. For the first time, the video card could reasonably be more expensive than the rest of an otherwise very good computer — you’ve long been able to put together something acceptable for $800, but $1,000 is where (for me, at least) the magic has traditionally started. Worse, the chances are now excellent we’ll start seeing cards that cost even more. And once you’ve established that a $1,000 video card is acceptable, how can you legitimately argue against an $1,100 card? Or a $1,200 card? Or a $1,500 card? It’s a slippery slope, and the mud-slicked grass on that slope is tessellated.

As we’ve already established, the card works as intended. (If it didn’t, I would have written something very different!) But whether it needs to — or rather, if you need it to — is another matter altogether. From my perspective, for most gaming, even of the seriously serious kind, the GTX 690 is overkill. Glorious, thrilling, eye-caressing overkill. But overkill nonetheless.

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Wow imagine how few people will be paying $1k for this at best $500 video card. Sorry no one part

on any computer is worth nor should it be priced at that much money. All Nvidia is doing is making

sure that they can say “Yeaaaah biotches we sell a $1000 video card and well….. a few people

bought them”

drummerboy00

@Thomas Wells, What the hell are you taking about, Your talking shit mate.There will be more than a few people buying this card i can assure you.You say not one part on any computer is worth or should it be priced at that much money. I bet if you go to work for someone and toil away hard you will want to be paid at the end of the day. Surely you must realize that it costs money to build these things and at the end of the day people other than you want to make money to keep the peoples best interest at heart.Your putting shit on good people.

Thomas Wells

And you are full of SHIT yourself if you think that this card NEEDS to be priced at A THOUSAND damn DOLLARS when the cost for materials will be seen to be around $250-$300 max. This is just Nvidia’s way of saying that they are going to be doing this in the future for some time now and that somehow this is the justification for doing so. And I still say that no one, single, discrete part on any DIS computer should be a thousand dollars. Also you can bet that at this point any pluses and negatives are ALL from Nvidia themselves so good luck in finding anything wrong with until after you’ve kissed your money goodbye.

VirtualMark

Nvidia are like all other companies – they need to make profit to survive. Obviously there’s more to the price of any card than just materials, there’s a lot of research and development, advertising, manufacturing, distribution etc.

If you don’t want the card, nobody’s forcing you to buy one. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make here? Or why you’re getting so emotional over a graphics card?

Wow, you know nothing about business. Even if the materials cost $300, you have to factor in technology development, NVIDIA probably dumped millions of dollars into the research of every card it produces. Now count labor, packaging, shipping, advertisement, factory die and development costs, and everything else you are not smart enough to think of. How many record breaking video cars have you made last week?

Bob Smith

Your not even considering people who use machines purely and simply for nothing but software that runs Stanford’s folding software. These people will happily 3 and 4 machines running 24 hours a day 7 days a week that will shame even the best gaming rigs and its sole purpose is to help the project. The more GPU power they have, the quicker it folds and the bigger points they get and still overclock it to its limit

They will pay out for rigs that have all 3 or 4 of the biggest, fastest most expensive GFX cards available if it means they get more points, and all that is installed is the folding software with no gaming software in sight.

I agree $1000 is a hell of a lot to Joe Public, but like commented on later $1000 for DTP or CAD work is pennies when ‘pro’ GFX cards easily cost 5 times that, speed is very important to them where time is certainly money

And give it 6 months they will be sub $500, the other BIG problem is gaming companies will jump on the band wagon and set even higher specs minimum specs for their games forcing people who want to be ‘up there’ to dump yet more hardware. What happened to gaming companies spending effort to squeeze the best out of their software instead of relying more and more on sheer speed of hardware to counter less effort in optimizing software

PC

+1

I’ve got the GTX690 and all the gaming I do with it is at 1920X1200. I know it’s not stretching the card at all, but that wasn’t the point of getting the card.

The point was to also give back something with what is normally unused processing power. Anyone with a modern graphics card such as the gtx690, let alone any recent cards from Fermi onwards should be ashamed for not at least doing some minor folding with their cards. In my case, I feel that the card has been worth every penny (about 40k PPD in case anyone’s interested), with possibly even more potential for it when full support for Kepler is released.

@Mathew, if this card is overkill then what is 2 680’s. I dont understand your comment, how can 1 card with dual GPU be overkill especially in terms of saving power and better heat dispertion. The only thing that is overkill with this card in question the 690 is the price, but yet again nvidia has justified that by my above statement.This card is definately NOT overkill. how can it be.Maybe 2 yea but not 1.

drummerboy00

@VirtualMark, good question Mark, so far from all of my reports and findings it is not noisy at all.I have one of these cards on order here in australia and would not miss this card for anything.Its got so many plusses and very few negatives.There are a few tests being done or have been done on this card and are available on youtube.

VirtualMark

Cheers, i’ll look them up.

drummerboy00

Its like anything that comes out, theres always someone who knocks progress and then bitches about price. Its the same old story told time and time again.Either go with the flow or get left behind simple as that.

As much as possible in computing labs. We do GP-GPU algorithms and programming in our lab and 1900 cores is equal to a very very powerful supercomputer.

But for my personal use even the GTS-450 is too much. I do casual simulation games, do my own simulations, develop cuda and opencl programs etc. Most of the time I purposefully gear down the mediocre GTS-450 because it provides more than I need.

However for some people (with too much money) having the highest possible is a habit (even if they do not utilize 30% of the capability). And unfortunately there are too many of those. Just look how many people drive Porche, Lamborgini and other expensive cars.

BTW as a computer science researcher I recently upgraded my PC to an Intel E6600. Most people will not do with less than an i5 or at least i3!

Just think, in several years, this card will go at NewEgg for under $200..

Early adopters..go for it..the rest of us don’t need it…

In an age where GPU’s are getting less relevant, cept for games or the 14 pros that “need” this card, no one else does!

Stevon Roberts

Is this powerful enough to run Microsoft? I do Word documents and spreadsheet tables and need something really powerful (I deserve to be banned for this–but hopefully it’ll make someone smile).

puzzlefighter

Yea, I installed all these IE toolbars and it’s really making things tough. Would this help?

jason leblanc

Strange not to mention the benefits of such a card for Multi-Monitor Gaming, 3D Gaming, and even Multi-Monitor 3D Gaming. Cards like this aren’t exactly made for 1920×1080 gaming. At least at 1920×1080 you could handle physics without worrying about fps.

Carl Miller

why complain about 680 if u buy 2 it costs just as much when u can just buy one 690 and get better benchmarks than two 680’s

As I see it NVIDA is saying “buy this one instead of 2x GTX 680”
– same cost
– same performance
– lower power consumption
– 1 less PCIe used

drummerboy00

@Thomas Wells,Please enlighten everyone here on where i said that this card should be priced at $1000.00 where did i say that. Where are you getting your info from. Like i said your full of SHIT mate so stop making things up and start thinking with your brain and not your dick if you have one.Its pretty darn obvious that you have no clue on how a buisness is run. Tell us Thomas, tell us all what we need to know instead of filling our heads with shit talk. You sound like a little boy

Armando Ruggeri

OK, let’s get some perspective here: This is NOT a mainstream or even enthusiast level card! It’s a ultra-high, high-density, performance solution for people who are serious about their displays, people willing to pay for top notch performance, people who ARE the .17% and possibly more than that…

These cards aren’t only for playing games: As a DCC producer for over 20 years I’ve come to really value my graphics solutions to help me get my work done! I’ve run a 30″ 2560X1600 monitors and multi-GPU cards for over a half a decade now; Even with multiple monitors & multi-GPU solutions there are times I wish I had more… I know of a number of people who run these kind of rigs for video editing, 3D animation, graphic & web design, CAD, financial analysis, etc. These professionals need as much speed and screen real estate as possible and that’s what a 690 provides.

Remember that many media creation tools use these GPUs to accelerate the creative process, scrubbing and rendering 4K resolution video, or spinning millions of
polygons in a 3D app IN REAL TIME can be invaluable! For example it may allow an artist to look
at more versions of rendered footage or more angles of a 3D scene; overall it allows them to be more creative.. In this context a $1000 card is not bad at all for the advantages it gives! Hell $1000 is CHEAP, especially when compared to the $4k “professional” versions of these cards… The bonus of booting up BF3 at the end of the day and fraging at 2560X1600 with all eye candy turned all the way up is a nice cherry on top.

Is the 690 overkill for a 1920X1080 24″ monitor solely playing games? Probably… Running 1920X1200 27″ display and rendering out After Effects or Premiere video? A good investment… For DCC professionals running multiple monitors and creating content day-in and day-out? A steal!

Everything has it’s place and it’s application…

Mathew Boban

And those people usually buy Quadros. Top of the line Quadro 6000: MSRP $4999, going for ~4 grand now. And that’s basically similar hardware to the equivalent GeForce cards with a lot more RAM, and with some software certification and OpenGL acceleration.The GTX 690 is probably good value for money in sheer processing power compared to that.

Brianna Thompson

the rest of an otherwise very good computer — you’ve long been able to put together.

respectfully, this card is what is required for 3d gaming. itmay seem high for the average monitor 2d image, but for a 150 inch screen 3d 1080×720 resolution this is absolutely needed. you want the toys, you gotta pay for em. :p

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